He had expected, perhaps, that after her proud, frank welcome before the people, she would turn to him when they were alone; but he found her manner full of a deliberate indifference. She abstained even from any allusion to her day's anxiety. He was reminded of all their meetings when, after months, she betrayed no pleasure at his return, but rather avoided him, and coldly disregarded his unthinking friendliness. Many a time, as a boy, he had been hurt and puzzled by this caprice, which, ever meeting him unprepared, was ever renewed by her. To-night he was neither hurt nor puzzled, but with a grim amusement accepted the pattern she set; he could allow her the luxury of a superficial control. With the harmony between them, they could play the game of pretence. He delighted in her unexpectedness. Her reticence stirred him, in its disconcerting contrast with his recollection of her as he had left her that morning. She moved from the court into the drawing-room, and from the drawing-room back into the court, and he followed her, impersonal as she herself, battening down all outward sign of his triumph, granting her the grace of that Epicurean and ironic chivalry. He knew their quietness was ominous. They moved and spoke like people in the near, unescapable neighbourhood of a wild beast, whose attention they must on no account arouse, whose presence they must not mention, while each intensely aware of the peril, and each alive to the other's knowledge of it. She spoke and laughed, and he, in response to her laughter, smiled gravely; silence fell, and she broke it; she thought that he took pleasure in testing her power of reviving their protective talk; the effort increased in difficulty; he seemed to her strangely and paralysingly sinister.